


promised

by ghermez



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Reincarnation, fox spirit akagi michinari
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28861317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghermez/pseuds/ghermez
Summary: three or four hundred lives ago, kita shinsuke was the fox spirit's promised partner. the cycle keeps turning.
Relationships: Akagi Michinari/Kita Shinsuke
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	promised

There is a mischievous fox spirit haunting Shinsuke.

He knows this because he has seen it. Or him. He can’t decide if the spirit is a boy or not, but he respects them and refers to them as the spirit wants: Fox.

Fox might be small in size, but not in might.

They perform the kind of tricks of which Shinsuke has only heard from his granny:

Swapping sugar for salt and turning every cake in the town terrible.

Making the roads icy so every winter morning, someone trips and falls on their bum.

Turning off streetlights while someone is walking down the street.

They’re harmless tricks, but the townsfolk are suspicious so they come to Shinsuke with their complaints.

Because long ago, before _this_ Shinsuke was born, or even Granny Kita was born, Shinsuke’s past self, each and every four hundred one of them, was the bride of the fox spirit. Except for the fact that he is no bride.

_Partner._

_Lover._

_Promised._

The voice whispers, giving Shinsuke alternatives. Gender never mattered to Shinsuke’s fox.

Shinsuke accepts his fate as fact like he accepts that the sky is blue and the earth is brown. He accepts it because Fox tells him so.

*

‘You are my bride,’ Fox says, eyes gleaming yellow, the swish of their tail faint but present.

Shinsuke is supposed to be drinking water, or so he’d intended when he stood in the middle of a dark kitchen. The empty glass in his hand is evidence enough. That is, before Fox appeared.

 _Is that why you have been playing tricks?_ Shinsuke wonders. He fills his glass.

‘Yes,’ says Fox.

Shinsuke frowns.

‘Are you reading my mind?’

‘Yes,” Fox whispers, gem-like eyes sparkling. The sound of footsteps follows suit. Fox comes into the light. Their size is still shockingly small, though Shinsuke doesn’t let the emotion show on his face—he’s good at keeping feelings at bay. Fox is more or less in the form of a human with the except of his fluffy, swishing red tail. Limbs lean, not in an underdeveloped child-like way, but corded with unassuming muscle. Fox is as tall as Shinsuke, really, but shorter than one might expect from a _fox spirit._

‘That’s not nice,’ comes Fox’s retort.

Shinsuke feels the frown on his face deepen. He clears his throat. ‘I’d ask that you refrain from doing that, please.’

Fox tilts his head to the side, short, dark hair fluttering across a high forehead. ‘Why not? Humans lie. It’s easier to simply get the truth from their minds than their mouths.’

Shinsuke bristles. ‘ _I_ don’t.’

Fox smiles, and it’s deceptive, promising one thing and delivering something entirely different. Entirely more confusing. Shinsuke has never been curious about the minds of others. People are allowed their secrets _and_ lies.

‘All right, Kita Shinsuke of Hyogo. I won’t read your mind, but you _are_ mine.’

Shinsuke drinks that glass of water he’d poured himself before Fox had invaded his privacy.

 _Though, you know it_ isn’t _totally insane to have a fox spirit show up and tell you you_ _’ve been promised to be their bride,_ don’t you?

There is a voice in Shinsuke’s mind that is speaking a peculiar kind of truth so he listens.

But not without questioning it.

‘Why me?’ He rinses the glass and puts it aside to properly wash it in the morning before breakfast preparations.

He doesn’t make a move to leave the kitchen, eyes following Fox’s movements as Fox seems to take in every little nook of the small room. Hand rising to touch the hanging pots, the sound a soft jingle in the quiet night. It’s summer, and the cicadas are lone musicians in entertaining the insomniacs of their town.

After what seems like a long minute of perusal, Fox turns to Shinsuke and shrugs. Just that. Shinsuke’s lips purse. He tries to loosen them. But he isn’t amused.

‘Why now?’ Shinsuke tries again.

Fox’s grin is a tease of a flash, then they’re leaning close, eyes so bright they eclipse everything else, filling up Shinsuke’s vision. They’re like candies he could put in his mouth and hide under his tongue.

‘I am growing weaker, Shinsuke,’ Fox says, and the ease with which Fox uses Shinsuke’s given name makes breathing a little harder of an ordeal than it should be.

Summer nights are usually cool, and yet Shinsuke can feel a trickle of sweat slide down his back under his cotton shirt, slithering down a path under the waistband of his pajama bottoms and nestling in the crooks of his knees. He squirms, his clothes suddenly feeling too heavy and too light all at once. He pulls at the stretched-out collar under Fox’s scrutiny.

 _Promised_.

Despite the changed word, Shinsuke’s mind persists in conjuring images of beautifully done-up women in heavy head accessories, face shrouded, then revealed, for their spouse.

His mouth is parched despite the glass of water he’d just drunk. He reaches for it again, but a hand reaches out. It is covered in a red swirl of a tattoo, or so Shinsuke thinks, then it shimmers and it’s gone. He squints. Did that happen or was he imagining it?

He looks back at Fox, and the spirit winks.

Fuck. He is awake. Very much so. And having a conversation with his promised fox spouse.

Before he can allow himself to panic, Shinsuke approaches the topic with rationality.

‘How will I help _strengthen_ you, precisely?’

If Shinsuke thought the smirk on Fox’s face had been a tease, now it’s a knife sliding under his skin, pulling against his nerves. He shudders involuntarily.

Is this Fox’s effect? Is this simply magic? (As if there could ever be _simple_ magic.)

Fox tilts their head like they might be listening to unspoken words so Shinsuke opens his mouth, a reprimand ready on the tip of his tongue, but a scent, thin but prominent, fills his nostrils. He takes another breath and he chokes on it.

‘What—’ he tries to ask, but Fox shakes his head.

‘Let me show you,’ Fox says in lieu of an explanation.

Shinsuke is befuddled to say the least.

Then he faints.

*

Shinsuke wakes up on his back in a rice field.

In the sky overhead, the sun can’t be any bigger than a boiled egg yolk but it’s just as yellow. For a second, he stares at it as if it might not burn out his irises. Then he realizes; he isn’t _awake_. This isn’t the sun.

He isn’t quite sure _where_ he is because the grass under his head is bristle when it should be wet. There is no water here. The brittle ground scratches up his palms when he pushes up to sit. He is still in his pajamas, the checkered pattern faded and stretched out at the knees. His head hurt, like his hair has been pressed in the wrong direction.

He rises gingerly, expecting some part of him to hurt, but he’s fine.

Except for the fact that he has been swept away. Somewhere unknown. But there is no space for panic in Shinsuke’s lungs. He’s…devastated.

He looks around. Smells the musty earth around him, dry and a little tired, but earth nonetheless. The soles of his bare feet press into it, and he is relieved it is as familiar as it always is. Sadness lingers on his tongue like black coffee.

‘Where am I?’ he asks.

Fox appears by his side, and Shinsuke should be surprised, but he isn’t. Fox’s presence is like the heat of the sun on the back of his neck where his towel slips sometimes. Familiar.

He gives Fox a smile. ‘Well? What are you _showing_ me?’

‘Do you not remember yet?’ Fox bites his lip when Shinsuke shakes his head.

‘Not _yet_ ,’ he says.

Fox lifts one hand and snaps index and middle finger into a loud pop, and they stand in another field.

It’s similarly parched, and Shinsuke’s heart hurts like he’d taken a kick in the gut. He bends over, breathing hard but hardly any oxygen come into his lungs. The earth here suffers. It’s so thick and cloying, pulling at him like a hungry child begging for a meal. He winces. What does he do to soothe it? Does he lay himself down? Let it swallow him whole?

‘What is happening to me? I can’t—breathe,’ he gasps.

Fox looks at him and confirms Shinsuke’s suspicions. ‘It’s the earth. It’s suffering. Growing weaker. It needs you.’ He is too saddened to snap at Fox for dipping into his mind again.

Another snap, and Shinsuke’s labored breathing goes back to normal but a full inhale hurts his lungs so he resorts to taking small sips of the air.

‘You hafta stop doin’ that,’ Shinsuke says between gasps of air.

Fox seems almost sheepish with the shrug of one shoulder. ‘Sorry.’

It’s unconvincing as hell.

‘Where are we now?’

‘We’re in me.’

Shinsuke frowns.

Fox’s ears twitch, his tail flickers behind him. ‘I meant, everywhere.’

‘That doesn’t clarify anything,’ Shinsuke mutters.

Looking around, the field surrounding them is like any other Shinsuke has been in, but it’s…barren. And the hunger embedded in the earth is so deep, yearning for nourishment.

With a pang, Shinsuke realizes for what this pull in his limbs calls. For whom. It calls for him. Begs him. To love it. To restore it.

He kneels, uncaring for the dirt getting on his clothes, and touches his palms to the ground.

The cry for help is so loud he shudders away. He looks up at Fox and asks the question he has been storing like a trump card.

‘What is your name?’

For as long as he’s lived, Shinsuke knew that names were precious things. He should be perturbed that Fox knew his, but nothing about Fox spoke of strangeness. Staring at Fox is like touching the ground. A homecoming.

‘I’ve gone by many names,’ Fox replies, eyes faraway. _And so have you_ , goes unsaid. Their lives are intertwined after all. The Fox Spirit and the Earth’s Promise.

Shinsuke asks again, ‘What is _your_ name?”

Fox seems to understand.

‘He is a man named Akagi. Akagi Michinari.’

Relief floods Shinsuke’s veins, turning his cheeks warm. He doesn’t need to know Fox to know Akagi. The man is part of Shinsuke like his bones and muscles. Reliable. Within reach.

‘Take me home, Akagi,’ Shinsuke says and puts his hand out in which Akagi place his own.

Their touch is groundbreaking, but Shinsuke welcomes the devastation.

Fatal as it is, their ravaging brings rebirth.

*

Akagi takes him to a house that’s far and yet near. The walls are tatami, reminiscent of Shinsuke’s own farmhouse. It’s small and yet _enough_. Shinsuke looks it over. It’s homey in the way one rock wall is covered in bookshelves filled with well-loved books. Shinsuke avoids the one thing he should inspect.

Their marital bed is a double futon wrapped in pristine white sheets with a thin cover atop it. It’s decorated with the small, thin outline of a red fox.

Akagi lingers by the sliding door, and, behind him, the yard is dark. His outline is that of the man that showed up in Shinsuke’s kitchen, except there is no tail swishing behind him.

The man, then, minus the spirit’s accessories.

The moon is nothing but a sliver in the sky, hidden behind big, fluffy, white clouds. Shinsuke has to squint to see Akagi’s face but it’s no one he recognizes.

 _Yet_.

The promise of memories, lifetimes of them, makes him shiver.

Akagi must take that as a sign that he is cold, so he moves to slide the doors shut, but Shinsuke puts up a hand to stop him.

‘It’s all right. I’m just—’ he takes a deep breath, ‘—cold. Come here, please.’

Akagi lets go of the door handle and walks over to Shinsuke. They are really of equal height, though Shinsuke has more muscle on his arms, and is softer around the middle and hips, whereas Akagi is lean and graceful all over. Something not like envy but curiosity swirls in Shinsuke’s belly.

Akagi looks upon Shinsuke with unreadable, bright, yellow eyes.

Like precious ambers.

Shinsuke, for once, wishes to be in the spirit’s spot. To be able to read _his_ mind.

It goes against his morals, but nothing about being ten minutes away from being deflowered is normal. (He loathes the word but there is no other for what is about to happen to him.)

The thought makes him sigh. ‘This is weird,’ Shinsuke breathes out.

Akagi smiles. The corners of his lips lift, revealing sharp canines that make Shinsuke’s heart beat faster.

‘How do we go on about this? Do we simply…um…’

Akagi’s eyes grow wilder. ‘Please, Shinsuke, finish that sentence.’

A blush rises all across Shinsuke’s chest now, and his throat is thick with embarrassment. ‘It’s my first time, all right. I’m not some Don Juan.’

Something about the confession softens Akagi’s eyes and makes him guffaw all at once. ‘Don Juan! That’s priceless, Shinsuke.’

Then, in a move sure but slow enough that Shinsuke could stop him—if he wanted to; which he doesn’t—Akagi touches Shinsuke’s shaking hand. ‘Except I am not a woman you need to seduce.’

His hand is set on fire.

He gulps down the lust roiling in him. This is nothing.

Then Akagi moves, and Shinsuke feels as if he’s being soaked in gasoline, with a lit match a mere inch away from him. He burns.

Akagi’s touch is nothing more than a hand across each apple of Shinsuke’s cheeks but he whimpers anyway, eyes screwing shut.

When he opens them, he finds Akagi watching him with a look so rapt, Shinsuke has only seen it in the face of love-stricken movie stars.

He whispers, heatedly, wanting to fast-forward to the part where this is behind him, ‘I was promised to you by some magic of the earth. So, take me already.’

Akagi frowns, which isn’t what Shinsuke had expected him to do. Kiss him, maybe, or push him down, but instead Akagi pulls away. The distance between them lowers Shinsuke’s fire into something tepid.

‘No,’ Akagi mutters.

‘What do you mean _no_?’ Incredulity coats Shinsuke’s words.

Akagi seems unaffected by his tone. ‘You _have_ a choice in this. You don’t have to be _taken_ by me. You are this earth’s savior with or without me.’

The heft of that word—savior—shouldn’t settle like a comfortable bag of rice on Shinsuke’s shoulders. He shouldn’t be this _consoled_ by it. As if a part of him, which he hadn’t even known been missing, is being slotted back in. Where it belongs.

Yet, nothing could be complete without Akagi. The man (and spirit) who has given him back the gift of memory means everything.

Shinsuke recalls the heroines of his granny’s favorite shows, how aware they are of their bodies, every curve and roll of their hips deliberate. But this isn’t the time for deliberation. It’s time for sincerity.

‘I…I haven’t been touched like this before. Or at all,’ he adds quickly. ‘It’s strange to feel someone like you holding my face, is all.’

Akagi turns back to him, the moon a little brighter behind him, but his expression is still in the dark, leaving Shinsuke to ponder what kind of face he’s making. ‘Someone like me?’

Shinsuke nods. ‘My…my husband.’

Akagi gazes at him, eyes unreadable and yet so tender their gaze spreads a healthy dose of shivers across Shinsuke’s skin. He holds himself, arms tight over his chest, and waits for Akagi to come back to him.

And when he does, it’s with a gentle whisper of, ‘breathe for me, Shinsuke,’ so Shinsuke breathes, slow, deep, and reverent despite not _yet_ knowing just how much this man, with his eyes that sparkle like pure gold, means to him.

He simply trusts the way every brush of fingers, touching his cheeks, his chin. Two fingers open his mouth then prod his tongue until he slicks Akagi’s skin with his spit. With a pleasant start, Shinsuke thinks, _This feels good_.

When Shinsuke is kissed, his heart settles.

 _Oh. This is what I_ _’ve been waiting for_ , he thinks. When he kisses Akagi back, at first his movements are of stilted awkwardness, then they are eased, smoother, as if guided by a lover’s devotion.

Recognition begins simple. It’s knowing just how good the tips of Akagi’s ears feel when Shinsuke rubs them between two fingers. He knows the shape. Knows the sensation.

He opens his eyes, mouth open on a gasp, and says, ‘I’m home.’

Akagi’s eyes smile ahead of his mouth, but when his lips spread into a grin, it’s breathtaking.

‘Welcome home, darling,’ Akagi says, gently sliding Shinsuke down onto the futon.

There, the promise returns.

And Shinsuke relearns how to find himself.

*

Sugar is sugar again.

Cakes are sweet as they can be, giving Shinsuke a slight toothache he welcomes with a bright laugh.

The streetlights are bright all the time, the autumn lanterns twinkling, guiding the way all throughout the town.

There is not a flicker in sight.

Despite the chill, Shinsuke never slips on ice. He is steady as he shovels the snow from the walkway.

‘Shin,’ calls Granny Kita.

He looks back, smiles, ‘Yes?’

There is an echo of another voice, calling him a hundred other names, and each one helps stitch things back together.

‘Your soup will get cool. Come eat,’ Granny says. Breakfast is ready and on the low table in the warm room.

He puts aside the shovel for later. But as he stops there, Shinsuke looks over the field to his left and smiles. The earth has been healing. Slowly. But it’s nice to see it covered in pure white snow, knowing that come spring, it’ll be green and dewy again.

Life comes back.

Eventually.

There’s a shuffle then a shadow leans over him, eyelashes shivering. ‘Are you coming, Shinsuke?’

Amber eyes. A mischievous grin. And a loving heart. Looking upon him, Shinsuke can’t imagine a lifetime where he _isn_ _’t_ in love with his Fox, but no matter how many times the cycle went on, they will find one another.

Because just as Akagi has found a home for himself as Granny’s shogi partner, he has also become Shinsuke’s…well, Akagi is everything to him.

And even if the memory of every iteration of Akagi never returned to him, Shinsuke knows it won’t change how he feels for the man with the hint of a tail.

Shinsuke and Akagi will enjoy _this_ lifetime.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a giveaway prize for sun. thank u for trusting me with kitakagi
> 
> i'm on twitter as [@spikingtit](https://twitter.com/spikingtit)


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